SONICWAX

December 11, 2008 at 10:13pm

Well, the only game I have genuinely desired to continue playing in story mode has been oblivion so far. I have replayed Mass Effect and other games but the desire to do so has never been as strong as it was for Oblivion. Not to say Oblivion is infallible because the darn thing is chock full of constant annoyance due to its immense amount of glitchery, scenic problems, etc. I did find the game to have a solid story and game play however, and a truly impressive size and freedom. I dearly hope that the Elder Scrolls series does not die soon, because thus far it is the only game that gets me to keep playing long after its release. A Jedi master I am

ideathief

October 20, 2008 at 4:08am

I love replayability. It should be the number one (if not two) focus when making game. Who didnt immediately boot up MGS again after saving Meryl and getting the bandana to get the stealth chip? No one...
I totally agree that there was a replayability drought and i think the very beginning of it's return to the limelight was the Achievement system. Developers started to make achievements for beating the game on unlockable difficulties and with certain weapons or without certain common actions.
Unless i absolutely LOVED the game (like MGS 3 which i must have played bout 10 times in a month) i usually go back for gamerscore.
I think Dead Space should go in the replayable Hall of Fame because i played it three times through already and the scares, tension and intensity remained every time.

Commander Dailey

September 11, 2008 at 9:02pm

I felt the same way you do about Mass Effect, though I only played through it two times, and even than, I only did the main story line. I was highly dissapointed with the game F.E.A.R. the most though because it held no replayability, and it was not even scary, just cheap tricks. But they are good games, along with Rock Band's downloadable content, not to mention the ability to take all your recent songs and find them on Rock Band 2, but always, flaws are there, like with Rock Band 1, there was no Online World Tour, which dissapointed me, because my uncle lives in a different country and we would have played together. But great topic. Have good times working for OXM, Dan.

LOU HOGFARMER

March 29, 2008 at 2:58pm

since i'm one of the "old guys" and a gulf war vet (disabled) i "N E V E R" get tired of playing and exsposing "gliches" on the ghost recon series the first one mainly!!! i have a lot of fun watching my 17 year old "hand" grenades to the enemy on medal of honor---frontline can a guy still buy those games brand new???? love your mag!!!

65jdog

March 21, 2008 at 11:42am

I think that sence the XBOX 360 has come out more and more of the games have become less replayable. When I bought assassins creed I almost wanted to take it back. It took me about 18 hours to run through the whole game and gave me no urge to play it again. Games that have exelent replay value are for me older ones like Fable that gave me the urge to play it up to twenty or so times. That is why Lionhead and Fable 2 are going to make so much money because I do not think that it will be excellent, I know it will be excellent.

instantdeath999

February 18, 2008 at 10:18pm

Like with books and movies, normally, when I beat a game, in goes on the shelf for awhile, and when I've beaten all my games, I might go replay some. This only applies to single player games, obviously. Oh, and if a sequel is on the horizon (like mgs 4) I might replay the previous games before its launched to refresh my memory.

brendanj2

January 30, 2008 at 2:45pm

I only replay a game if: 1) i am really bore 2) it was a really good game 3) i am trying to get achievements

radomu

January 18, 2008 at 2:01am

I think it's dumb to mention this, but Mass Effect is the most replay-able game for the 360. No one seemed to complain for the lack of multiplayer or coop like they did for Bioshock.

Augm3ntal

December 19, 2007 at 9:37am

I Finished Bioshock on medium after harvesting a few girls and didn't get the good ending or savior or all tonics. After completing it I instantly started over on hard and have kinda lost interest around halfway trying to perfect my achievements. *SPOILER in case u still haven't played Did any one else take the big daddy back to the dentist to get himself a new drill.. lol.. easily the biggest disappointment for me.

Paulluap855

December 16, 2007 at 10:36pm

I was disappointed in Bioshock's replayablity. I felt hurt by the claims on how it would be such a revolution in first person shooters and how 'oh so similar' it felt. I really think if they could have taken the time to throw in some multiplayer it would have truly been worth the $60 price tag. However I did feel Mass Effect was WONDERFUL sans multiplayer. Its amazing the different results you can get with subtle changes in dialogue choices.

SatansButtFungus

December 16, 2007 at 4:04pm

I'm gonna go with the individual person argument. It all depends on the person. They could be as busy as you at OXM, or they could be lazy bums like me. They could have a million reasons to not play or a million reasons to tear up some enemies. More replay value in the game helps, but sometimes people just don't have the time to burn(Assuming one can burn time)or they just say "screw it" and wait until it's either play the game or look at a wall... I hope they don't choose the wall.

Exterminator

December 13, 2007 at 9:41am

I agree with you in saying that it is good that replayability is there and that Mass Effect is definetly a good game for it but im not so sure i agree with you on saying that Bioshock and Halo 3 are not replayable and also Gears of War. Bioshock was the sort of game that i wanted to play again right away in the harder mode and i know that a lot of other people did that as well....and a shitload of people went back and beat Halo 3 in Legendary pretty much straight after they beat it either on Heroic or Normal. Apart from those few games i see what you mean and yeah i really do like it that in the past year there has bee more and more games with a huge replay value.

chokehead

December 12, 2007 at 9:00pm

I think Bioshock would have been a game I would have played again for the story. Unfortunately for it, a bunch of other games came out pretty soon after its release. Other then that, not much this year has tempted me to come back twice, except for achievements. i tend to bank games until slow periods between releases, and then go back and finish up the commitment achievements. i guess it helps me get my $60 worth.

MrSegraves

December 12, 2007 at 2:25pm

Replayability is all about preference. Some people could play the Halo 3 campaign over and over and still be satisfied. Some games are built on the replayability factor, such as both of the Knights of the Old Republic games. And then there are people who will only very rarely replay a game after they beat it, no matter how good it is. Personally, there are few games I won't replay. Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess shall probably never be replayed, because although it is amazing, the roller coaster of emotions it put me on is not something I want to do again. Then there are games like Elite Beat Agents which are addictive to the point you can't stop playing them. In the end, it all amounts to the person playing the game as to whether they will play through it a 2nd (or 43rd, in the case of KotOR.... ha.) time or not.

Spybreak

December 12, 2007 at 1:46pm

It all comes down to if a game is fun to play and if it gives the player choices along the way. Fun, Zelda: Orcarina of Time, Mario 64, Goldeneye, choices, Mass Effect and Fable maybe Gears of War (should I go left or right). Mass Effect gives you two replays automatically but if you find the game fun you're going to want to play it again. I think a few developers and games got it right but I don't think it's a trend. More people should pay attention to it though as it breaths more life into the game's lifespan. You see most people think of replayability in multiplayer but some single player games get it right on how to grow the game's lifespan and I applaud you. Now you're dead

gonotron2

December 11, 2007 at 6:09pm

MATT I believe there are many components when it comes to games. One of them is the replayability. You just finish playing a game but you want to play it again, this time differently. Does the game let you? If so, does it change the story drastically? Games like mass effect, elder scrolls and even phychonauts are all examples of these kinds of games, and in thw world of next gen, this should be high on the priority list when developers create a new game

kingkev

December 11, 2007 at 3:16pm

i've played halo 3, 3 deffernt times. i just got mass effect, already plan on playing it again. plaed and beat gears of war 5 times and once in co-op mode. i even went back to fable and fable the lost chapters. beat both 2 times. i've played and beat star wars kinghts of the old republic 4 times and beat the second one 2 times. beat jade empire 2 times. i've beat both halo 1 and 2 over 5 times. i think replay value is coming back and i hope it stays.

Dessan

December 11, 2007 at 2:53pm

If you finished playing through Mass Effect for the fourth time last night and plan to both reach level 60 and beat the game again on 'insanity' tonight, then you're like me and, upon reading this, realize you have a problem. I'm so close to getting 1000 points, so check the gamertag of Dessan later if you want to see what that looks like (ha ha). Plus, I beat Bioshock three times, and Portal three or four times (it's easier to do when they're short). Went through Half-Life 2 and its episodes couple times. Replaying songs in Guitar Hero/Rock Band count, so that's around 500 times. I replayed Halo 3 lots of times (online co-op with different people). Gears of War co-op a few times and again on the PC version... oh, Resident Evil 4; I played that to undeath, getting every unlockable. Back when I played World of Warcraft, I made dozens of little characters, so I had to redo all the regular zones several times. Getting 1000 points in Dead Rising took a lot of play-throughs. And, oh... I've said enough. What's interesting is that for every game on this list, there are like, two games I never looked back on.

MitchyD

December 11, 2007 at 12:08pm

I've been thinking the exact same thing lately, Ryan. I'm on my FOURTH play-through of Mass Effect whereas I recently gave my BioShock to a friend. No amount of DLC can bring me back to Rapture. When I say that "BioShock was a once in a lifetime experience" I really mean ONCE. The impact that game had on me was widdled away my second time through, so I stopped when I got the camera. The encounter with Sander Cohen will be infamous in gaming history and I don't really need to see the other ending (the bad one. I was pro-life) to get the satisfaction from it. I saw everything, heard everything, and felt everything that I needed to feel. Nothing added could make me feel more satisfied, while with Mass Effect, I'll never get bored of it. The encyclopedic universe has me wanting to learn more about it every time I play it. And I do learn. I love it. Another game I found a little replay value in was Crackdown. Now, the story is rubbish, so there's no point in replaying it at all, while I found that tooling around and causing mayhem infinitely enjoyable. That said, without co-op, Crackdown has no reason to exist. No game in recent memory had the impact that Mass Effect did for me, both in enjoyment and replayability. Having recently beaten Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and enjoyed it, I am not compelled to go back to it immediately. I will play it again, hell yeah, but not right away. It's short enough that when I go back in six months and beat it in a weekend it will be all new to me, whereas something like BioShock scars you permanently. Forever. But totally in a good way. You just don't want to go back and get another one, because then the situation is just ugly. -- http://www.nukoda.com -- Gamertag: MitchyD88

STeaMY MaRTiNi

December 11, 2007 at 10:30am

For the first few years or so of my gaming career, I only played offline. I became accustomed to partake in multiple playthroughs for one game. Every time I did, I enjoyed playing a different way. I've played through Half-Life 2 about ten times as of this date. It's an engrossing experience every time. I also disagree that Bioshock doesn't have replayablility. I plan on playing through Bioshock again and again, playing a different style with each playthrough. I value the single-player experience more than the multiplayer, in my gaming opinion.

dietcoke4fatty

December 11, 2007 at 8:53am

i played through halo like 2 times oblivion 3 times and kotor aaaaalllllooooooootttt

Romoware

December 10, 2007 at 11:29pm

Very rarely will I play a game through twice. So its not surprising to me the last time I did was KOTOR leave it to Bioware to make you want to try something again. I believe they are just ahead of the curve on pulling people back into their games. A game has to have something special to go through a long story again already knowing how it is going end.

cart00nstrip

December 10, 2007 at 10:17pm

Being bi-polar, I often find myself getting too frustrated with some part in a game to continue playing it. After a while, I'll blow the dust off the game and slide it back into the console, but, inevitably, I'll have forgotten what I was supposed to do at that point, or I'll realize that in order to pass the thing that originally frustrated me, I would need more health or ammo, so I start all over again. Trouble is, then I get bored and the game ends up back on the shelf again... This is to illustrate the fact that if I ever DO get to the end of a game, I'm probably not gonna play thru it again anytime soon. There HAVE been some, of course - most of the Zeldas, for example, "Beyond Good & Evil" was fun for a couple extra spins, "Riddick" was a worthwhile do-over... I started replaying "BioShock" the second I finished it, only to get bogged down about a quarter of the way thru it. Big Daddy just wasn't so scary anymore! "Portal" was awesome enough to play thru a couple more times, but I'm totally stymied by the ending of "HL2:Ep2" - what kind of stupid insanity is that "sticky bomb" crap? Can't I just have some rockets for my launcher? That concept mighta worked on PC, but it's just plain NUTS on Xbox 360! Way to break a great game, Valve! Another problem I have is achievements - I'm sorta addicted to them. By sorta I don't mean I'm a gamerscore whore (not a single "2K6" game has spun on my 360 - feel free to check!), but once I get all the achievements I care to chase after (I'm not much for multi-player, because most of the ppl I've met on Live, well, aren't very conducive to my being bi-polar), the game kinda loses its shine. Case in point: "Oblivion". After achieving all 1250 points, I haven't had any real desire to pick it up again. And my second character is still in the middle of "Shivering Isles"! That's okay, tho' - I've got "Mass Effect" to pick up the slack - which I can't WAIT to restart! Go figger... gt: cart00nstrip

ThePope

December 10, 2007 at 8:56pm

I dont play through many games a second time, well not right away at least. After beating it the first time, i feel complete. But thats why I buy games so that 9 months or a year down the road, i take a second frolic through my game library. CHECK IT: http://360live.blogspot.com/

saggin good

December 10, 2007 at 7:10pm

yeah i beat assassins creed and i was going to try to get the rest of the achievements but once i started playing again i just felt out of it. I havent played since. Though I have played COD 4's campaign four times.

Cherub23

December 10, 2007 at 6:41pm

Yeah I agree about the fact that most games are now being made to be played once with a whole lot of "WOW!!!" which will of course make the second run through kind of boring. I think the best showing of this first time wow is in games like Bioshock and Assassins Creed, in each game you will be wowed constantly during the game but in the end you will be left feeling sad that its over and hoping for more. Assassins Creed isn't so bad but Bioshock is definitely one for the shelf. The games for me that I can play over and over again are Gears of War in Co-op campaign (multi is just to much of lag for me), Call of Duty 4 is a new one that I am going to be playing for a while multi and solo, Halo 3 in every way save solo campaign, and Mass effect.

LIG GUNNER

December 10, 2007 at 5:18pm

I feel that replayability isn't necessary in many games. I was fully satisfied with my $60 at the end of the Bioshock campaign. There wasn't much branching within the sstory besides harvesting or saving little sisters. I am also one to say that I have owned about a total of 50 games for my 360 but currently have about 8. I return games that wont be worth the replay strictly for the nice $35 return tag from my local gamestop. The faster you finish, the more you get back. I also think that as well as RPGs, music and innovative games are easy to replay. The music games are always the Jam and innovative games tend to have a larger learning curve so you want to go back and try the beginning again after knowing what you did after your first playthrough such as Portal or Oblivion, in which has a huge core game. I feel any RPG can always be played a second time if not for fun, for the varying achievements on each playthrough such as Mass Effect's biotics achievements or Fallouts achievements that are said to be impossible to get in one run.

PaperLantern

December 10, 2007 at 4:46pm

I'm gonna have to agree and disagree with the BioShock statement. When I (and most of my friends) were done with it, we went right back the beginning and played it again. I think this was the case with most people. Unfortunately, most people didn't beat it a second time. I know I didn't. On the second play through, I just gave up about halfway through. Looking back at it, BioShock was really great, but really there wasn't a boatload of replayability. You wanna talk replayability (remember, we're sticking with single player, not multi), you think of games like Mass Effect, Oblivion. The trend seems to be that RPGs have a great amount of replayability. Is it because it offers more choices and branching story paths? I don't know, but it seems that way. The shooter genre seems to have less replayability because essentially, it's just rinse and repeat. Halo 3, Call of Duty 4 (although I must say, I am having a fun time playing through a few missions multiple times, and the whole campaign as a whole is really awesome), and Gears of War are some games that come to mind when you talk about linear gameplay. Regardless, the RPG genre is probably the most replayable for most people.

evword

December 10, 2007 at 4:35pm

personally i don't replay that many games, but the one that stands out the most since getting my 360 is COD 2. that is still one of my favorite games of all time, i felt compelled to go back and play some of my favorites missions right after finishing it. Then a couple of months later i went thru about 1/3 of it on veteran. then my friend finished it veteran, so of course if for nothing more then the gamerscore i went back and did the same, with the exception one one level, which i plan on finishing whenever. and that is the game i play the multiplayer in with lesser gamer friends, just because its so easy to get used to, unlike halo is not about lining up head shots and melees. you kill people so fast thats almost no learning curve. after like 10 games someone else can give me a game, now granted i still win every time, but its not a cakewalk, that way it would be playing someone in halo after there first 10 games.

DodgeThis

December 10, 2007 at 1:57pm

The only game I ever replayed was Black for original xbox. Other than that I find replaying games repetitive. Such as Dead Rising, repeating the same boring action over and over. My Dad on the otherhand is a replaying fiend... he does'nt like me buying new games when I finish the old ones because its to expensive and he always says... "You don't play the games you have." Its just because its not worth it anymore. Games have little replay value to me and will probly stay that way.

Te1vanni Guard

December 10, 2007 at 1:55pm

I'm going to have to call you out on the replayability argument. Specifically on Gears of War. There's a reason the game's still $60 on store shelves. The multiplayer keeps the game alive. Personally, me and a few friends have kept to a gaming trend of at least two nights a week often 5+ of multiplayer fun and mayham. And this has been going on for the past few months. Multiplayer adds replayability to games that extends them way past their campaigns will. That's what makes me not buy as many single player games. I know.. eventually.. they'll end. But games with muliplayer go forever.